The Stranger Who Knew My Name

The Stranger Who Knew My Name

The train doors hissed open with a metallic sigh as I stepped onto the cold, dimly lit platform at Camden Hill station. It was past midnight, and I was the only one who got off. The city felt different at this hour—quieter, like it was holding its breath. I pulled my coat tighter around me and began walking toward the exit.

That’s when I heard it.

“Evelyn.”

I froze. The voice was soft, almost cautious, but unmistakably directed at me.

I turned. A man stood under a flickering fluorescent light. Tall, mid-thirties, sharp features. Dressed in a dark coat like mine, his hands buried in the pockets.

“Do I know you?” I asked, my voice sharp from the jolt of adrenaline.

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “But I know you.”

The way he said it made my skin prickle.

“What do you mean you *know me?”

He paused, studying me like I was a puzzle he was halfway through solving.

“I saw you once,” he said. “Years ago. You were crying on a park bench. A red journal on your lap.”

My heart skipped.

That journal. I’d lost it, no, buried it when I left my old life behind. The night everything fell apart. The journal was where I wrote the things I couldn’t say out loud. Secrets no one should know.

“How do you know about that?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he extended a hand, offering something small. I hesitated, then stepped closer.

A photograph.

It was old, worn at the corners. Black and white. Two people—one was definitely me, maybe age seven or eight. The other was a woman I didn’t recognize. Smiling, holding my hand. Behind us, a sign: *Marion Street Orphanage.*

I stared at it.

“I was never in an orphanage.”

He looked at me, his eyes unreadable. “You were. For three years. You don’t remember because they didn’t want you to.”

I felt dizzy.

This wasn’t happening. I had parents. A childhood. Birthdays, school photos, a family dog named Milo. Normal memories. Real ones.

“What kind of sick joke is this?”

“No joke,” he said calmly. “They gave you a new name. A new history. Evelyn Granger died in 1998. You were someone else before.”

I shook my head. My vision blurred. “Who *are* you?”

“My name’s Lucas. I was there with you.”

The name meant nothing. But something about his tone—quiet, sure—kept me from running.

Lucas pulled out another object from his coat. A music box, scratched and tarnished. He wound it once. A lullaby played.

I knew that tune. Not from childhood or memory. From dreams. Always the same melody, always ending in a door I couldn’t open.

“You remember it, don’t you?” he said.

“What is this? What do you want from me?”

“To tell you the truth. Before they erase it again.”

I blinked. “Again?”

He nodded. “It’s not just you. There were others. Children from the orphanage. We were part of something—some project. They wiped our minds. Reassigned us. You were relocated first. I’ve been looking for you ever since.”

“This is insane.”

“You used to say that song kept the nightmares away,” Lucas said, almost wistfully. “But they always came back. You drew them in that journal. Pages of black eyes and white faces. I remember.”

I staggered back. “Stop.”

But the images crashed through my mind like a wave—faces I didn’t know, shadows behind doors, fire. The smell of burning. A hand reaching for mine.

“I don’t want to remember,” I whispered.

“They’ll find you if you don’t. They’re watching.”

I snapped my head up. “Who?”

Lucas stepped closer, his voice low. “They called it *Project Somnus.* They put us to sleep, erased trauma, reshaped memory. But it never lasted. It always leaked back in.”

“This is—this is paranoid fantasy.”

He sighed, then pulled up his sleeve. Scars—neatly spaced lines ran along his arm. At first, I thought they were self-inflicted.

“They tested something on us,” he said. “Serums, implants. I found mine two years ago, behind my rib. Had it cut out by a vet in Bosnia.”

“You’re not well.”

“Neither are you.”

And suddenly, I wasn’t. My breath came short. I was sweating despite the cold. That lullaby still played in my head. I dropped the photo. My mind spun.

“I’m going,” I said, backing away. “Stay away from me.”

“I’ll be at the Marion Street ruins tomorrow,” Lucas said. “You’ll remember eventually. You always do. When you dream of the fire.”

I turned and ran.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I stared at the photo for hours. My childhood home was still there in my mind, intact and vivid. But next to it now floated a shadow—an alternate truth that grew stronger the longer I stared at the girl in the photo.

The next morning, I called my mother.

“Do you remember the red journal I used to write in?”

Silence. Then: “What journal, sweetheart?”

“I had one. Before we moved to Parkside. With the key lock.”

A pause. “You must be confusing it with one of your school diaries. We never lived near Parkside.”

My blood ran cold.

“I have to go.”

I took the train to the other side of the city. The Marion Street Orphanage had burned down fifteen years ago. All that remained were brick ruins, blackened by time and soot. I picked my way through the rubble, heart hammering.

He wasn’t there.

But something was.

Beneath a cracked stone step, I found a charred piece of metal. The remnants of a music box. I picked it up. As my fingers closed around it, the song filled my head—not faint this time, but loud and clear.

And then the memories came—

The fire.

The white masks.

The cold hands.

And Lucas, grabbing my arm, told me to run.

I dropped to my knees, shaking.

I *did* know him.

He hadn’t lied.

And now, someone knew that I knew.